Porsche Takes Le Mans Momentum To the Nurburgring, Nabs WEC Pole

When the World Endurance Championship for sports cars and sports prototypes last met, Porsche's 919 program wrote itself into the books of history with a dramatic 1-2 finish at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was undoubtedly the pinnacle of the season for the sports car series, so you'd think the series would do everything they can to capitalize on the momentum by having a race soon afterward for new viewers and those who haven't considered sports car races outside of Le Mans to flock to. They didn't, but even more astounding than that is the degree to which they didn't; It has been eleven weeks since Le Mans, another six since the last WEC round before that, and the series is just now meeting again at the Nurburgring's Grand Prix Strecke.

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It's the polar opposite of IndyCar's tradition of running another race in the midwest just a week after the Indianapolis 500. In the time since the last meeting of the world championship of sports cars, IMSA's top North American sports car series has met five times, Formula 1 has gone on two separate summer breaks and returned from both, and perhaps most jarringly, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has run ten races.

All that time off hasn't changed the balance of power in the series, however. The Le Mans-winning Porsche 919 Hybrids are still notably faster than Audi's two R18 E-Tron Quattros, and both are comfortably ahead of both of Toyota's soon-to-be-redesigned TS040s. The overall winners of the 24 hour classic aren't racing in the top LMP1 class this weekend, as their car was a one-off for the race, so the #18 Porsche of Marc Lieb/Romain Dumas/Neel Jani will start on pole ahead of the only other 919 Hybrid entered, the #17 of Timo Bernhard/Mark Webber/Brendon Hartley.

The Le Mans winners are continuing their momentum in LMP2 as well, with class winners Matthew Howson and Richard Bradley joined on pole for the race by Nick Tandy, returning from a two race run with Porsche's LMP1 team that culiminated in a career-defining victory. Their Oreca coupe starts ahead of the #26 G-Drive OAK Ligier and the Alpine-Branded open top Oreca.

AF Corse, on the heels of showing the Ferrari 488 GTB they will run next year for the first time, will start their Ferrari 458s 1-2 in GTE-Pro (With the #51 Gianmaria Bruni/Toni Vilander car leading the #71 James Calado/Davide Rigon entry), ahead of the flurry of Aston Martins and Porsches that make up the remainder of the class. A Ferrari leads GTE-Am too, the SMP Racing 458, ahead of Aston Martin Racing's #98 and the #77 Proton Racing Porsche carrying a major celebrity, Patrick Long.

The race starts at 7 AM EST tomorrow, running for six hours on Fox Sports 2. You can see the full starting order here.

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